Good for CodeGear that its IDEs (other than Delphi) on on the industry radar. I got two emails today from different sources with two elements in common.

The first common trait is that where Borland once got a good foothold, CodeGear is still holding a tiny spot. JBuilder is in IDG's InfoWorld "2008 Technology of the Year" honors (the easy-to-navigate list in this press release) and 3rdRails is among the nominations for the CMP's 2008 Jolt Awards by Dr.Dobb's Journal. I find it a bit peculiar that you have to pay to submit your product, but still this is a nice list of relevant tools in the development industry, even if not a complete one. wonder if CodeGear submitted other tools for evaluation...

The secodn common trait is that both the InforWorld 2008 Best and the 2008 Jolt have no mention of Microsoft whatsoever. Not in the operating systems area, not in the database and tools area, not in the development tools area. Of course, publishing and marketing are related (and Microsoft used to be very good at this game!) and they might have decided not to submit for a Jolt (by error or for a specific decision), but I think this signals also a trend. Microsoft operating systems and tools have lost of the "cool" factor to other vendors, despite their widespread usage.

What do you think? Any background story from those "in the know"?